A Million Reasons for Wanting to Carry on Living

I was hoping that the Victoria Park fireworks were going to rubbish and recessional; I didn't think anything would out-do last year's robots in space theme and I felt that another great display would just lead to too high expectations for Nov 2010. Happily, I was wrong.

This year's theme is !Fire! and the display starts suddenly - no Lazengentlemenboyzngirls announcements - with a bang and a whoosh from the flame throwers and then a Tower Hamlets logo is set alight as a '50s song starts doo-wopping and the pyrotechnics fizz upwards with the chorus. The brilliance of the display is the way the songs coalesce with the fireworks and then, wonderfully, the fireworks start to match the songs; gunpowder explodes into rings during Ring of Fire, and heart-shapes when Peggy sings about Romeo & Juliet and Anthony & Clepatra. And of course Great Balls of Fire is a fire display, (no 'works) with great gushes of flames from the oil burners. Another romatic song just features white lights, white heat. Pure pyro-artistry.



Even if Elton John and Liberace were to throw a joint Bonfire Night party, it wouldn't be half as good as this. Thanks, Tower Hamlets council tax payers! Hope your streets remain swept and your bins still get emptied.

Chinese lanterns float above the park.

After the sample-fest that is Borough Market, we mosey on down to the Tate to look at Rachel Whiteread’s white boxes which is like getting lost in a sugar-cube factory or walking around a mountain of plastic snow.

The sun sets pink over Bankside and then David wants to watch England lose draw lose draw win (blimey how did that happen? Pity that energy, enthusiasm and effectiveness isn’t always there in the competitive matches) against Argentina, so we find a pub which, for some reason, has London’s full contingent of South American residents within it. I have a break and go to watch the Lord Mayor’s fireworks from Southwark bridge; Aurora Londonius, glittering glow-worms, electric snowflakes before returning to the pub which has now got a sign on it saying: “Private Party, Regulars and Market Traders Only”. We decamp to its diametric opposite, the Slug and Lettuce, but at least we have a table and a clear view of the screen. After, we eat at us favourite Chinese, Hing Loon on Borough High St, and get the 43 back north of the river, walking the side streets home.